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This would seem consistent with his pre-Web thinking. For example, IIRC, he tried to organize a contest on behalf of the Internet/Usenet, in which all the comp

by neilv 3y ago

This would seem consistent with his pre-Web thinking. For example, IIRC, he tried to organize a contest on behalf of the Internet/Usenet, in which all the computer companies would compete to see who could assemble the best "dream" Unix workstation. IIRC, the unusual thing was that, for his part in facilitating this, he would receive one of the dream workstations personally. (Which, at the time, rubbed me the wrong way, because it seemed like other Internet/Usenet projects were done more volunteer-like. But in hindsight, or at least in today's cultural conventions, someone being upfront about wanting a consideration for their effort on a project seems perfectly reasonable. It just seemed unusual to me as a kid, in the hard separation at the time, between the techie non-commercial Internet altruistic utopia we could imagine at times we were creating, and whatever different world the stereotypical MBAs would like so that they could grab wealth and power disproportionately.) Regarding this new thing, ESR might not need the money today, though he might like to be more back in the center of things, and/or to have a positive impact. In early Web times, business wanted to pick up Linux, etc., and he became an "influencer" for open source -- maybe a figurehead, like "here's the counterculture perspective, and you can work with him; now go at it, business types" -- helping to adapt RMS's mission in a way acceptable to business. So he got a windfall when the Linux IPOs were happening: https://news.slashdot.org/story/99/12/10/0821224/esr-writes-on-surprised-by-wealth https://news.slashdot.org/story/99/12/10/0821224/esr-writes-...

elcritch 3y ago
Given ESR was very wealthy by most any standards, it seems very disingenuous to list himself as an LBIP. His need “high”. Seriously did he waste his fortune in which case I don’t feel bad for him or want to support his wasteful ways. Alternatively he’s still well off and just greedy.
- tptacek 3y ago
  There's a folkloric belief that ESR got very wealthy, because he wrote a blog post about how wealthy he believed he had gotten on VA Linux, but I don't think that really panned out. If you paid attention to his blog, while he was writing it, the last couple of years the narrative was instead that he was on the edge of not being able to do open source stuff anymore because he had no income; some of his friends/fans even wrote comments complaining about him asking for money, when everyone else just solves this problem by getting a job. I don't know any more than anybody else who reads blog posts about this stuff, but I strongly suspect that he did not in fact blow a giant fortune, but rather, like a lot of people who briefly had a lot of paper wealth at that time, it never really materialized. It's an embarrassing blog post to write, "I thought it was rich, turns out I'm not", so there isn't the matching post.
  - likpok 3y ago
    Based on the lockup alone he can't have gotten that wealthy. LNUX had a 180 day lockup, after which the price had fallen to $40-50 (https://itsfoss.com/story-of-va-linux/ https://itsfoss.com/story-of-va-linux/). That'd be around $6 million based on the blog post (36 million at 274/share). That's of course assuming he sold as quickly as he could. LNUX IPOed right before the dot com crash, a year post IPI it was 9/share (at that price, ~1 million to ESR).
    - tptacek 3y ago
      2 years after "Surprised By Wealth", he wrote a commentary about VA Linux's layoffs where he more or less said outright that he'd never cashed out, which wouldn't be surprising, since he was a director of the company. One assumes he managed to get something out, but since he doesn't seem to have had a full-time job after VA Linux, it's easy to see how one could have burned through it. It feels weird doing kremlinology on this stuff; what I feel like I understand about his situation is, wherever he was then, he isn't anymore. Whatever else he was at the time, he was certainly employable. This LBIP thing is comical because regardless of his economic circumstances, he is practically the textbook case of someone you'd want to recognize as not load-bearing. That, by itself, is not a dunk; I'm a similar textbook case: loud, but not anywhere on the Internet's critical path.
    - elcritch 3y ago
      Thanks y'all for the context. I was mainly going on the context from that one slashdot link. If he waited too long to sell and only got a ~$1 million that could quickly become $500k after taxes, especially in CA. Just another case of options/equity being worthless until there's cash in the bank.
      - dtaht 3y ago
        He never cashed out. He got nothing. Just the royalties on his books and the occasional consulting contract.
    - gregw2 3y ago

by neilv 3y ago

elcritch 3y ago

Given ESR was very wealthy by most any standards, it seems very disingenuous to list himself as an LBIP. His need “high”. Seriously did he waste his fortune in which case I don’t feel bad for him or want to support his wasteful ways. Alternatively he’s still well off and just greedy.

tptacek 3y ago
There's a folkloric belief that ESR got very wealthy, because he wrote a blog post about how wealthy he believed he had gotten on VA Linux, but I don't think that really panned out. If you paid attention to his blog, while he was writing it, the last couple of years the narrative was instead that he was on the edge of not being able to do open source stuff anymore because he had no income; some of his friends/fans even wrote comments complaining about him asking for money, when everyone else just solves this problem by getting a job. I don't know any more than anybody else who reads blog posts about this stuff, but I strongly suspect that he did not in fact blow a giant fortune, but rather, like a lot of people who briefly had a lot of paper wealth at that time, it never really materialized. It's an embarrassing blog post to write, "I thought it was rich, turns out I'm not", so there isn't the matching post.
- likpok 3y ago
  Based on the lockup alone he can't have gotten that wealthy. LNUX had a 180 day lockup, after which the price had fallen to $40-50 (https://itsfoss.com/story-of-va-linux/ https://itsfoss.com/story-of-va-linux/). That'd be around $6 million based on the blog post (36 million at 274/share). That's of course assuming he sold as quickly as he could. LNUX IPOed right before the dot com crash, a year post IPI it was 9/share (at that price, ~1 million to ESR).
  - tptacek 3y ago
    2 years after "Surprised By Wealth", he wrote a commentary about VA Linux's layoffs where he more or less said outright that he'd never cashed out, which wouldn't be surprising, since he was a director of the company. One assumes he managed to get something out, but since he doesn't seem to have had a full-time job after VA Linux, it's easy to see how one could have burned through it. It feels weird doing kremlinology on this stuff; what I feel like I understand about his situation is, wherever he was then, he isn't anymore. Whatever else he was at the time, he was certainly employable. This LBIP thing is comical because regardless of his economic circumstances, he is practically the textbook case of someone you'd want to recognize as not load-bearing. That, by itself, is not a dunk; I'm a similar textbook case: loud, but not anywhere on the Internet's critical path.
  - elcritch 3y ago
    Thanks y'all for the context. I was mainly going on the context from that one slashdot link. If he waited too long to sell and only got a ~$1 million that could quickly become $500k after taxes, especially in CA. Just another case of options/equity being worthless until there's cash in the bank.
    - dtaht 3y ago
      He never cashed out. He got nothing. Just the royalties on his books and the occasional consulting contract.
  - gregw2 3y ago